U.S. foreign policy toward Iran and Iran’s nuclear program
Published Mar 16, 2005 2:31 PM
Vice President Dick Cheney once said that the country that controls the Middle
East oil can exercise a “stranglehold” over the global economy.
Especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. has increasingly
resorted to force, rather than diplomacy and economic leverage as the primary
means to deal with challenges that stand in the way of its strategy of control
of the world’s essential energy resources, its geopolitical domination,
nation-building, privatization of industrial and finance capital of other countries
and the easy availability of foreign markets. It goes without saying that the
U.S. can only achieve those objectives if its targets are not prepared nationally
or otherwise to defend themselves from U.S. threats of economic and geopolitical
containment, or the tactic of sewing division among the nationalities of a given
nation, such as in Iraq, or outright military attack.
No wonder that the first issues of contention raised by the U.S. in international
organizations such as the UN with its Human Rights Commission, and its International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are the violation of human rights and the alleged
possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by the countries of the so-called “Third-World.”
As the world witnessed in dismay, with all the self-styled and cynical charges
about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction made by the U.S.,
12 years of severe economic sanctions pushed by the U.S., carried out by the
UN, control of Iraq’s airspace in the North and the South by the U.S.
and the UK, the true objective of the U.S. was not the safety of the peoples
of the Middle East or the so-called international community, but occupation
of Iraq, destruction of its infrastructure, establishment of a pseudo government
subservient to the United States, privatization of its essential resources,
control of its oil and the creation of a dependent capitalist market for the
products of the imperialist countries.
The same scenario, but in a slightly different form, is marshaled against
the Islamic Republic of Iran. Knowing that the world, fully aware of the tragic
lessons of Iraq, will firmly reject the spurious charges, the U.S. has claimed
that Iran is in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by engaging
in the process of purchasing materials, equipment and the enrichment of uranium
with the intention of building nuclear weapons. Just as in the case of Iraq,
the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have visited Iran numerous
times and expressed satisfaction with its compliance more than once.
Iran has been a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since
1970, according to which it is entitled to receive technical assistance, equipment
and materials from the nuclear or non-nuclear member states and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear monitoring agency. So far,
a total of 187 countries have joined the Treaty, including five members of the
nuclear weapons states. To everyone’s surprise, the state of Israel is
among a few who have refrained from joining the Treaty, and has never been even
criticized by the U.S. or referred for economic sanctions to the United Nations
Security Council. Apparently, some countries are above the landmark international
treaties and feel no obligation towards nuclear disarmament.
According to IAEA’s confidential report obtained by Reuters and published
on Nov. 13, 2003, “There was no evidence [on Iran] that Iran’s nuclear
program was for anything but peaceful purposes.” It is interesting to
note that in response to the IAEA report, U.S. Undersecretary of State John
Bolton said that this was “impossible to believe.” Wasn’t
the world a witness to a similar U.S. reaction to the chief of IAEA, Mr. Mohammad
El-Baradi’s judgment concerning the absence of WMD’s in Iraq, immediately
before the U.S. invasion of that country? Just as in the case of Iraq, in order
to destroy the credibility of the IAEA and to spread mistrust and cynicism,
John Bolton launched a fierce attack on Tehran and the UN agency by stating
that a “massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear
capabilities” made “sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program” (BBC
News, Nov. 13, 2003). Furthermore, Iran has agreed to the IAEA’s demand
for accepting an Additional Protocol that allows the agency to carry out intrusive
inspections of any sites without prior warnings. On the other hand, according
to the Arms Control Association’s Fact Sheet of January 2005: “The
U.S. has not yet adopted the necessary implementing legislation for the Additional
Protocol to become law.”
Yet, it is the U.S. and its Zionist client state of Israel that constantly
threaten the security of the people of Iran. In the two weeks leading up to
Iraq’s electoral circus under occupation, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and
Condoleezza Rice, now Secretary of State, and the corporate media following
in their footsteps, reminded the rest of the world, but especially the American
people, that Iran is a threat to world peace and security of the Middle East
region, Western Europe, and even the United States, ten thousand miles away!
We need only look at a single short period to see the vast number of political
attacks and the amount of propaganda carried out against Iran: on Jan. 18, 2005,
the BBC New agency announces that the U.S. is concerned over Iran’s human
rights; U.S. special forces are operating inside Iran; and Seymour Hersh of
the New Yorker magazine reveals the U.S. plans for coming wars and the probable
attacks on Iran by the Israeli forces. Choosing randomly between the dates,
on Jan. 24 the world learns that a U.S. internet company under pressure from
its government violates the contract and “terminates” the Iranian
website. On the same day, the head of Israel’s Mossad (its deadly intelligence
agency), Meir Dagan, said that Iran’s Nuclear Program was nearing the “point
of no return.” On Jan. 30, 2005, Bush, in his State of the Union Address,
calls Iran the “World’s primary sponsor of terror” that is
trying to develop nuclear weapons. In the next breath, he has the audacity to
address the people of Iran by saying that “As you stand for your own liberty,
America stands with you.” Three days later, on Feb. 3, 2005, the Boston
Globe asks the frightening questions: “Onward to Iran?” “Is
Iran Next?” The article states that the Americans [the organizations of
the U.S.] keep growling a war option, which Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain
called “madness.” A day later, the Jerusalem Post states that John
Bolton, during his visit to Abu Dubai said that Israel might attack Iran’s
nuclear sites, because the “Jewish state has a history of such actions.”
In response to all these threats and psychological warfare, on Feb. 7, Iran’s
top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, says that “Iran will retaliate
and accelerate its efforts to develop nuclear technology if attacked by the
U.S. or Israel.”
As we see, in a span of barely two weeks, tens if not hundreds, of propaganda
attacks, mixed messages and innuendos are leveled against Iran, trying to destabilize
the country and encourage Israel to do the same that it did to Iraq in 1981,
i.e., bomb its nuclear energy facilities.
The differences between the U.S. and Iran are the direct outcome of the U.S.’s
quest for domination over the Middle East on the one hand, and the Iranian’s
aspirations for independence, equality, economic progress, genuine people’s
democracy and social justice on the other. This quest by the Iranian people
culminated in February 1979 in the overthrow of the Shah, one of the two main
U.S. pillars for the control of the Persian Gulf Oil. The second pillar has
been the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is in this context that the U.S. charges
and schemes against Iran, such as charges of building a nuclear bomb, being
part of an “axis of evil,” being a “de-stabilizing force” and “sponsoring
terrorism” have to be analyzed.
The question of nuclear technology is merely a part of a larger U.S. agenda
-- that is its strategy for an exclusively monopolistic control of the oil and
gas resources of the Persian Gulf states and the monolithic geopolitical domination
over the Middle East and Central Asia.
For a clear and comprehensive understanding of the true nature of U.S. foreign
policy towards Iran during the periods before and after the 1979 Revolution,
the issue of nuclear energy must be separated from the question of nuclear weapons
production. In addition, we must discuss the problem of nuclear technology in
the context of U.S. foreign policy during the Shah’s rule, and Iran’s
future energy requirements:
1. The history of nuclear energy in Iran
2. Does Iran need nuclear energy, while it embodies huge deposits
of oil and natural gas?
3. The relation between Iran and the IAEA, and the U.S. role in it
4. How do we achieve a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, when the “Jewish
state” of Israel, the only one, is armed to the teeth with 400 nuclear
bombs?
Part I. History of Nuclear Technology in Iran
Iran’s interest in nuclear energy, research and know-how began in the
mid-1960’s under the direct tutelage of the U.S. within the framework
of turning Iran, the way of Israel, into a regional and nuclear power for containing
the movement of Arab Socialism and its orientation towards the Soviet Union.
With the technical assistance of the U.S., the first nuclear research facility,
namely, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) was built in Tehran University
in 1967 and managed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), which
was founded in 1974. Immediately after the founding of TNRC, the U.S. sold a
five-megawatt research reactor to Iran, which was installed at the Amirabad
Technical College in Tehran, which runs on 93 percent highly-enriched uranium.
The reactor could produce up to 600 grams of plutonium per year in its spent
fuel. Simultaneously, the U.S. sold hot cells to Iran which could be used for
separating plutonium from the spent fuel, and then used for the production of
atomic bombs. The question that remains to be asked is why the U.S. sold the
hot cells to the Shah?
Iran became a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on July
1, 1968, which went into effect on March 5, 1970. Article IV of the Treaty states
that “Nothing in the Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable
right of all the parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use
of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity
with Articles I and II of this Treaty.” Furthermore, Article IV continues
that “All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have
the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials
and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy.”
As can be seen readily, no article in the Treaty authorizes one or even a
handful of countries, to deny the inalienable rights of the non-nuclear members
to research, development, and production of nuclear energy, using the self-serving
pretense of suspicion and mistrust. It is a well-known fact that the U.S. is
the only country that has used the atomic bomb twice on the people of Japan,
and has threatened 37 times to use nuclear bombs against other nations.
Let’s return to the history of Iran’s nuclear energy. According
to the de-classified U.S. government documents, cited extensively by Mohammad
Sahimi, Professor and chairman of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the
University of Southern California in Los Angeles, in his authoritative paper,
Iran’s Nuclear Program, the U.S. government in the mid-1970’s advised “Iran
to expand her non-oil energy base” by reasoning that “Iran needed
not one but several nuclear reactors to acquire the electrical capacity that
the Stanford Research Institute” paper in 1973 “had proposed, and
expressing interest in U.S. companies’ participation in Iran’s nuclear
energy projects.”
Emboldened by Washington’s encouragement, the Shah planned to build
23 nuclear power plants throughout the country, and no authority in the U.S.,
France, or West Germany disputed the Shah’s extensive and expensive projects
on the basis of the fact that Iran was rich in oil and natural gas deposits,
the reasoning that recently “Condi” Rice provided for the redundancy
of plans for nuclear energy in Iran. At the time of the Shah, the only reason
that the plan for the construction of such a huge project could not be enacted
upon was that the price of oil in the world market fell considerably, and the
Shah’s government was not financially capable of paying for it.
However, in 1974 the Shah’s government signed a contract with (West)
Germany’s Kraftwerk Union, a subsidiary of Siemens, to begin the construction
of two 1200-megawatt nuclear reactors at Bushehr, a city in the south-western
part of Iran. Soon, in 1975 to be exact, the Atomic Energy organization of Iran
(AEOI) signed a contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
for the training of the first group of Iranian nuclear engineers. Meanwhile,
West Germany, France, the U.K. and the U.S. trained thousands of nuclear specialists
from around the world. Iranian nuclear personnel received their training in
Italy, Belgium, Canada, as well as the U.S. Mark D. Skootsky in his June 1995
research paper on U.S. Nuclear Policy Toward Iran writes that “while these
specialists were being trained in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in order
to achieve the Shah’s plan for 23 nuclear power reactors, the knowledge
they gained could also have been used for a secret nuclear weapons program,” as
it did in India.
According to Mohamad Sahimi, the classified documents mentioned above contained
the information that in an address to the October 1977 symposium named “The
U.S. and Iran, an Increasing Partnership,” Mr. Sydney Sober, a spokesman
for the U.S. State Department, proudly announced that the Shah’s government
was about to purchase eight more nuclear reactors from the U.S.
According to Mark D. Skootsky, Iran signed “extendable ten-year fuel
agreements with the U.S., Germany and France.” In addition, it purchased
a 10-percent share of an enrichment facility which was in the process of being
built in France by the Eruodif consortium, whose founders included France, Belgium,
Spain and Italy. Above all, Iran loaned $1 billion to the French Atomic Energy
Commission (CEA) toward construction of a gaseous diffusion enrichment facility
at Tricastin, France, according to Skootsky. In the absence of the 1979 Revolution,
these deals would have been a gateway for Iran’s access to enrichment
technology and a large quantity of the highly enriched uranium, (HEW) produced
in the Tricastin plant. The gap between the possession of hydrogen hexafluoride
and building nuclear bombs would have been very short, and this was well-known
to all parties involved in the arrangements.
“According to Dr. Akbar Etemad, who was the founder and first President
of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran from 1974 to 1978,” writes Mohamad
Sahimi, “the TNRC carried out experiments in which plutonium was extracted
from spent fuel using chemical agents.”
By 1979, when the Revolution toppled the pro-U.S. monarchial regime, the
Shah had reached contracts for a total of six nuclear power reactors with France,
Germany and the U.S. The two 1200-megawatt German light-water power reactors
at Bushehr were partly finished. The reactor Number 1 was 90 percent complete
and 60 percent of its equipment was also installed, while Number 2 reactor was
50 percent complete. The Iraq-Iran war brought heavy damage to the core areas
of both reactors.
After the Iraq-Iran war, the Islamic Republic of Iran, under President Rafsanjani,
reinitiated Iran’s nuclear energy program and immediately approached Kraftwerk
Union to complete the Bushehr project or ship the reactor components and technical
documents that Iran had paid for. However, under U.S. pressure, the German government,
and Kraftwerk Union refused to honor the contract or even return the money.
Left in the cold, Iran filed a lawsuit in 1996 with the International Commerce
Commission (ICC), asking for $5.4 billion in compensation. But the case is still
unsettled.
On May 5, 1987, Iran and Argentina signed agreements concerning the delivery
of enriched uranium. The $5.5 million deal would have provided Iran with a new
core for its U.S.- sold five-megawatt research reactor in Tehran University
so that the reactor would operate on 20 percent enriched uranium. The contract
also included the Argentine export of the 20 percent enriched uranium to Iran.
In September 1980, the International Atomic Energy Agency approved the transfer
of 115.8 kilograms of uranium, which was within the IAEA safeguards.
Although the U.S. was unsuccessful in blocking Argentina from selling the
20 percent enriched uranium to Iran, it succeeded in preventing that country
from fulfilling other aspects of its contractual obligation with Iran in early
1992. Again, under heavy pressure from the U.S., Argentina backed out of the
deal by the end of that year (1992).
Once before, as early as the mid-1980’s, writes Sahimi, “a consortium
of companies from Argentina, Germany, and Spain submitted a proposal to Iran
to complete the Bushehr – Number 1 reactor, but huge pressure by the United
States stopped the deal. The U.S. pressure also stopped in 1990 Spain’s
National Institute of Industry and Nuclear Equipment to complete the Bushehr
project.”
After exhausting all the avenues in the West in search of finding a country
or a company that would not be intimidated by the threats of the U.S. and begin
the work on Bushehr’s nuclear energy project, Iran turned to the Soviet
Union, and then Russia, to finish the job.
Following a preliminary study of the project, the Russian Ministry of Atomic
Energy signed a comprehensive contract with Iran in January 1995 to bring the
reactor to fruition. Iran and Russia also studied the feasibility of constructing
a gas centrifuge uranium-enrichment facility in Iran. Immediately after the
signing of the contract, the Clinton administration repeatedly, but unsuccessfully,
launched a far-reaching campaign to convince, intimidate, and use even economic
and diplomatic pressure to force Russia out of the contract.
Having failed in its scheme of depriving Russia from establishing a friendly
relationship with its southern neighbor and the financial gain emanating from
the deal, Washington began claiming that the plutonium that would be produced
in the process would be used by Iran for making nuclear weapons. In order to
neutralize the U.S. opposition, Russia suggested to retrieve the spent fuel,
and Iran also agreed to return the rods to Russian authorities for a price.
As if this concession was not enough, the U.S., in collusion with Israel, claimed
that the working of the reactor will give the Iranian scientists the opportunity
to learn the arts of nuclear science and technology. Of course, according to
the U.S. and Israeli government, the same criterion does not apply to the scientists
of the “chosen people”.
In other words, as long as the Shah was a partner of Israel, and a puppet
of the United States, it could engage in developing all sorts of nuclear energy
and devices. But Iran, after the revolution does not deserve and cannot be trusted
with any technological, economic and social advancement, according to Washington
and Tel Aviv. Furthermore, countries like Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and 80 percent
of humanity have to be kept backward so that they don’t ever dream of
independence, equality, social change and especially revolution. People engaged
in such changes will be branded by the U.S. empire as “terrorists, despots,
dictators and rogue nations to be disposed of.”
The U.S. import-export limitations, sanctions against countries and companies
which may invest in the Iranian oil and gas industries, and sabotage in the
construction and expansion of its nuclear energy, along with bellicose diplomatic
and political pressures, has left Iran with no choice but to develop friendly
relations, not only with the biggest economies of Europe, Germany, France and
the U.K., but particularly with Russia, China and India.
For many reasons, including geopolitical and economic gains, Russia and China
have expanded their cooperation tremendously with Iran in the last two decades.
Currently, the ongoing technological, informational and diplomatic exchanges
by Moscow and Beijing with Iran have frustrated Washington and Tel Aviv in their
psychological war and propaganda attacks against Iran.
China, due to its monumental industrial expansion and inexhaustible need
for fuel, and Iran’s need for low-cost industrial products have grown
to become sound economic and diplomatic partners. “China is currently
Iran’s second largest export partner and third largest import partner,” writes
Andy Maron in www.worldpress.org of Feb. 11, 2005.
“According to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” continues
Andy Mason, “China has probably provided nuclear technology to Iran.” Russia,
in comparison to China, has been transparent in its technological and material
support to Iran’s nuclear energy development. Russia has remained firm
in its position that, as long as Iran remains a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, it has every right to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Russia’s
cooperation with Iran in the field of nuclear energy has been also profitable
to Moscow. The bold Russian effort in rehabilitating the Bushehr Project not
only has saved the reactors from complete ruin and stopped Iran from experiencing
a total loss, but has also brought $800 million to the Russian nuclear establishment
revenue. As a result of this cooperation between the two countries, a new contract
for seven more generating units is planned. This contract that could bring Russia
close to $10 billion is not a deal that Moscow could walk away from, despite
U.S. pressure of any sort.
The Chinese and Russian pro-Iranian stance, aside from the economic benefits
derived, has its roots in resisting the U.S. military domination of the region.
Politically and diplomatically, both are not close friends with Iran’s
enemies, who may appear under the banners of “democracy” and “human
rights”.
End of part I.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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